Groundhog day…again

05 February 2018

Spring is not yet showing its hand here in England – temperatures are low but pulses are quickening nonetheless as the eyes (and camera lenses) of the world finalise their plans for the wedding on Saturday 19th May 2018- of the 33-year old Prince Henry Charles Albert David Windsor (that’s Prince Harry to the rest of us), 5th in line to the throne, and the 36-year old American Rachel Meghan Markle at St George’s Chapel at Windsor castle, 25 miles from central London. Come rain or shine, we wish them all the best!

On the subject of royal weddings, Prince Harry’s 27-year old -cousin Princess Eugenie has recently announced that she will be getting married to Jack Brooksbank on Friday October 12th, also at St George’s Chapel Windsor. With two weddings and a royal birth to look forward to in March or April – William and Kate’s 3rd child – fans of the royal family have plenty to think about!

Among this week’s non-royal news is the placing on the market of a house that’s skinnier than a London tube train in the London district of Battersea (for a cool £1 million…) close to the recently opened new US Embassy. One at a time now…

ON THIS DAY

In 1953 on February 5th, rations for candy were abolished! Only a few months later, Everest was to be summited by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay just a couple of days prior to the wedding of our Queen with Prince Philip, the news breaking the very morning of the wedding. Rationing for candy (‘sweets’) was introduced in 1940, with a 200g weekly allowance for everyone over the age of 5 – enough for a couple of wrapped sweets a day. Many adults handed their ration coupons over to little ones so that they would enjoy more sweets. You would have thought that with the end of the war in 1945, rationing would cease. Not so! The government kept up the squeeze on rations to boost exports until the 1950s, meaning that everyone that was a teenager during the Swinging Sixties has a clear memory of standing in line with their ration book hoping to be lucky enough to buy a few sweets.